


believer

by lokidreamsinbw



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Curious Loki, Kinks, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Orgasm Control, Orgy, Power Play, Public Humiliation, Threesomes and more, and many more - Freeform, becoming thor's favorite, sex cult leader thor, to appear in the next chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-05-26 15:24:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15003785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokidreamsinbw/pseuds/lokidreamsinbw
Summary: Loki gets a mysterious card thrust under his door. After googling what it says on the card doesn't shed any light on what's it's really about, Loki follows the gps coordinates and finds himself in an abandoned house in the middle of a field, coming face to face with the leader of the Spes sex cult.





	1. do you believe in spes?

It all starts with this card someone slides under Loki’s door.

He comes home from the bookstore where he works and finds it on the floor—just next to the umbrella stand. It’s the beginning of August, after 7, and the glowy light of the setting sun rushing into the apartment through the open door comes to rest and shimmer on top of it, like that little slip of shiny paper is something of the divine.

People leave stuff under your door—fridge magnets with numbers of pizza places on them, advertisements for this one business or the other that had just opened, small town event fliers. Just boring stuff that Loki throws away without even thinking about it.

But not this.

This little piece of white paper gets him to stop right in his tracks and eye it with tiny tingles running down his arms. Because from where he’s standing with his bag slung over his shoulder, the one thing that stands out is this big dark question mark at the bottom right corner and for some reason it makes him feel uneasy, like the question that precedes it will be one of those that are humanly impossible to answer like what’s the meaning of life, and leave you feeling hopeless because you’re just this tiny tiny thing in an endless universe, and no one’s out to help you because your existence is of no importance to anyone.

A breathy flutter of wings. Doves at his living room window, pacing on the other side of the glass, cooing throatily. Both grey with egg yolk-colored eyes.

Loki sets his bag by the door. Bends over to pick up the card.

Only three lines of text are printed on it.

_Do you believe in spes?_

Dust motes twirl and rain all over it in the sunlight, and Loki turns it over. The other side is blank.

 **

Spreading low fat cheese spread over two slices of hot toast later in the evening, standing by the small kitchen counter he thinks it’s religious, it has to be. It’s something missioners sometimes thrust under your door, notes full of cryptic messages like this one that get you curious and make you feel like your house has been seen by god, like something extraordinary has happened and it opens Pandora’s box inside your head. You search for said sentences online and you find more info and you read and sometimes if the timing is right the info sticks and it makes you a believer.

Licking the knife clean, lapping at the corners of his mouth with the tip of his tongue, he puts the knife down and dips his hand into a bowl of freshly chopped green onions. He picks up a handful and sprinkles the small rings all over the cheese.

He left the card on the kitchen table. Now, he can feel it behind his back—the bold question mark shaking its curvy form on the paper, making scratchy noises trying to get his attention.

Loki pops one onion ring into his mouth and brings the two bread slices together. He presses down on them with his hand until the toast lets out a crunchy sound and then he slices it in half.

Getting a glass of water, Loki sits down at the kitchen table. Taking small sips and small bites of his toast, he stares at the card.

The kitchen window is wide open and the night smells like spicy smoke. Must be a small forest fire somewhere, yet no visible flames Loki can see. The smell gets his heart thumping in his chest. He always got strangely excited by the smell of smoke ever since he was a kid, by the spark and the mysterious grayness it carried.

With the overhead light casting an orange circle around him and with the tickly scent of smoke in his nostrils, staring at those 5 words on the card feels like some sort of a mystical experience.

_Do you believe in spes?_

The entire apartment is cast in darkness—only in the kitchen a light is burning and Loki’s shadow stretches across the tiles, the chair’s shadow too, and, fused together, they create an upside down question mark, with Loki’s head as the single black dot.

 **

Sitting in the tiny storage room where he keeps all his boxes full of highschool books, Loki flips through a pocket-sized Latin dictionary. The pages are yellow because he got it second hand, and they crackle like parchment paper.

The light bulb swings from side to side over his head and the shadows in turn leap from one wall to the other.

He’s on the floor, knees pulled close to his body and the card is in his lap.

He runs his finger down the page, searching.

He retracts his finger into his palm when he spots spes.

It means hope.

Loki sets the dictionary aside and picks up the card again, flicking the sharp corners with his thumb.

The fact that it turned out to be a ‘light’ word and not a more ominous one, doesn’t make him feel more at ease. You ask someone if they believe in hope, you approach it with the initial assumption that times are hard at the moment and hope is needed, sought after. It also _offers_ you hope—by which way it’s unclear at the moment. And it can remain unclear if Loki will choose to ignore the message on this card, look into it no further. He thinks _toss it in the bin, move on. You thought It could be a religious thing, turns out you were right, but this has nothing to do with you so just carry on with your life and forget about this._

But for some reason, he just can’t. It captures his mind and imagination.

He sits there for a while, turning the card over and over in his hands until—

A sudden rustle, something zooming past his nose, soaring towards the ceiling.

Loki squints and blinks up at the swinging light bulb.

A brown moth is circling around it, batting its wings against the hot glass.

 **

Loki takes his lunch break in the small park across the street from the bookstore.

He’s having a hot rice dish in this little see-through plastic container, poking at roasted sunflower seeds sprinkled all over it with his fork. What he’s eating, it makes him think of never ending fields, heavy with grain, baking in the sun.

Taking in a mouthful of salty rice, Loki looks around.

It’s a hot day, no wind to move the branches of the tall green trees.

Everything seems to stand still, so still it makes him calm and anxious at the same time. He even checks his watch twice, just to make sure the hands are still moving, that time hasn’t stopped quietly, without anyone noticing.

When he’s done with his lunch, getting up from the bench, he realizes he’s been sitting in the presence of a large stone statue this whole time there behind him—a naked man, positioned on his knees, raising his hands toward the skies, eyes turned up as if he was worshipping a divine being.

 **

Sitting in a coffee shop later that afternoon, Loki gives in to his need to google.

He takes the card out, puts it on the table next to his plate that has a toast with honey and cinnamon in it, halfway eaten.

He’s sitting by one of the almost human sized windows and his body is half light and half shade as he feeds the words into the search engine.

_Do you believe in spes?_

One little website is all he finds. It has these words as the ip address. The site appears to be under construction. It only has the main page up—a photo of a golden wheat field at the top with some text beneath it. Nothing is clickable.

Loki takes a bite of his toast. The sweet, scented honey sticks to his tongue, his teeth, sits dewy on his lips as his eyes move across the photograph. Looks like someone played around with filters editing this—the wheat stalks are honey-colored and the skies above them blinding white. But it’s such a good photograph—Loki can hear the ripened wheat swaying in the hot wind like a secret being whispered and he gets the chills all of a sudden.

Chewing slowly, Loki’s gaze moves across the lines of text.

_Your EYES are OPEN but you can’t SEE._

_Your HEART is ALIVE but you can’t FEEL._

_You SLEEPWALK through your LIFE, yearning for something to take the place of LONELINESS inside your HEART._

_JOIN US._

_We will REKINDLE your PASSIONS._

_We will show you DIVINE ECSTASY._

**Do you believe in Spes?**

The sweet sound of women laughing close by.

Loki looks up from his phone.

A dark-haired guy is standing by the order station, conversing with 4 young women. They stand around him in a circle, blushing, blinking flirtatiously, touching his arm, his shoulders, his face. He has them bewitched and they love him for it, for the power he has over them.

Loki looks down at his phone again. The text reads motivational at first, maybe a little bit religious. Many religious groups say they’ll help you see the light of good in a corrupt world where everything is bleak and dark and humanity seems to be lost. But at some point, the text turns sensual almost, using the words passion, ecstasy. Loki doesn’t know what to make of it yet. It sparks a stubborn flame of curiosity inside him and he finishes his toast reading through the text again and again with the sound of the wheat mumbling breathlessly in his ears.

Wiping his sticky fingers on a napkin, he spots some numbers at the bottom of the page. He zooms in on them.

His lips part on a soundless 'oh’ when he realizes they are GPS coordinates.

** 

 

The GPS coordinates take him to the countryside, to bumpy roads and skies so white they trick you into thinking you’re staring straight up into heaven itself.

Mirrored sunglasses on his hair, the wind catching in his black t-shirt, he’s driving with the window open and the smell of ripened summer fills the interior of the car. It smells strong and potent, energizing and yet dizzying.

He’s got the card in his jeans pocket and his mind is in a haze.

 _What are you doing_ , it demands to know. Turn _back while you still can_.

Loki doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t know if he’ll only ask questions or ask for their assistance (with what though, he’s not sure), and who are _they_ anyways? Is it a group of people? Is it one person masquerading as more to make it seem like they’re popular, and sought after? Is it like a cult? Is there a leader?

The light gets even brighter and Loki pushes the shades up the bridge of his nose.

He drives for a while longer with butterflies fluttering their silky wings in his stomach before the wheat field appears.

Loki turns the car towards the path that undulates through it and pokes his hand through the open window so his fingertips can touch the wheat stalks as they pass him by.

 **

The house, standing under a patch of white skies, casting a large shadow on the ground, gives off this feeling like there’s no one inside it.

Making his way up the porch steps, Loki pokes at some silver wind chimes dangling from the low porch roof. They sing an eerie little melody and Loki heads for the front door, taking his sunglasses off and hanging them on the front of his shirt.

There are some wicker chairs standing around, decorated cushions included. A small table with a round crown of red flowers on it stands to the left.

Coming to a halt on a mat with a sun motif on it spreading its bright orange thick rays everywhere, Loki clears his throat before he knocks on the door.

A topless man appears in the doorway a minute later. He’s a thin redhead, coral colored-lips.

Holding the door open, he looks Loki over. His gaze is hard to read but Loki thinks it’s appreciative and knowing at the same time. For some reason it makes Loki feel uncomfortable, like he’s a piece of meat that needs to be fitted with a price.

There’s a heavy looking stairway looming behind the young man’s back, cast in heavy shadows—that’s all Loki can make out from the interior of the big house.

Loki reaches into his pocket, takes out the card.

He shows it to the redhead.

“Someone slipped this under my door,” he says.

The man gives a crooked smile, more like a twitch of his lips before, face turning serious, looking over Loki’s shoulder as if he’s checking to see if someone is following him.

“You’re a reporter?” he asks.

Loki catches a whiff of candle smoke coming from the shadows and his heart gives a tiny jolt.

“No,” Loki replies, “I work in a bookstore.”

The redhead looks him over again before he gives a little nod and motions for Loki to come inside.

He leads the way up the stairs and Loki follows, putting his sunglasses on his hair to hold it back from his face. He looks over his shoulder. The front door remains wide open. A line of white and a line of yellow beneath it, earth and skies, and Loki thinks _I can turn away now, I can walk out the door and no one will stop me._

But he doesn’t.

Creaky stairs then down a hall that’s lined with burning candles, on the floor, on tables, everywhere, flames tilting softly from left to right, then hissing when the two men pass by them, letting out scratchy trails of smoke.

Closed rooms to the right, closed rooms to the left, the walls dark burgundy with golden motifs.

Loki blinks when faint sounds find their way to his ears. Takes him a second to realize they are small gasps and breathy moans.

The flames crackle and snap, the tiniest, sharpest sounds, like it’s raining grains of salt.

He opens his mouth to ask but the redhead opens a door at the end of the hall and holds it open for him.

Heart picking up its pace, Loki peeks in, lips parted, eyes unblinking.

Inside the room, the lights are dimmed. Devoid of furniture, a group of naked men watches as in the center of the room, one man penetrates another amongst lit candles and hissing incense.

Loki takes a step back without realizing it, gaze moving over everything and everyone.

The other men are touching themselves or touching the ones sitting beside them. Naked bodies, orange in the glow of the candles and the scent of sweat mixes with the scent of wild vanilla that lingers in the air.

From the corner of the room, a man watches.

Loki’s gaze lingers on him. The pants he’s wearing are thin and soft and he has no shirt on. He’s tall and muscular and his blue eyes twinkle in delight at the sight of the couple fucking as if in some sort of a trance on the glowing floor. A leather bracelet around his left wrist with two onyx-colored beads strung on it. A silver ring around each thumb.

And Loki’s cheeks flush because not only is that man gorgeous, he also exudes power and charisma that have Loki wanting to spread his legs for him right then and there, accept him into his body, let him claim it as his.

He turns his head to look at Loki, arms crossed over his chest. Their gazes meet and the man’s pupils expand at the sight of Loki, devouring all that stunning blue of his eyes. He looks Loki over with a hungry look, gaze moving down his chest, lingering over his legs.

Loki gulps and wets his lips, “found the card under my—”

The man signals for him to come closer and he does.

“Like what you see?” the man interrupts. His voice sends chills of pleasure down Loki’s spine.

Loki looks on as the man being penetrated hard throws his head back and scratches at the tiles with his nails.

“Yes,” Loki admits quietly.

“Good,” his eyes linger on Loki’s mouth then search his eyes, “then stay and watch. What’s your name?”

“Loki.”

“My name is Thor,” he says and moves to tuck a strand of wavy hair behind Loki’s ear and the touch of his fingers when they brush against his cheekbone intimately, makes Loki shudder with delight, “so tell me, Loki—”

Thor touches just under Loki’s chin, smiling into his eyes, and whispers “do you believe in spes?”


	2. where the rules of the Bible don't apply

Even outside the farmhouse Loki hears the sound of the burning candles.

He’s walking to the man’s right with his hands stuffed so deep in his pockets it feels like they’re about to penetrate the earth’s core and when he’ll pull them out, chunks of gold and diamond tears will fall through his fingers and his palms will be wet having been dipped into the hidden fountain of youth.

The whisper of the candles is everywhere: it’s this tiny silky sound, secretive and hushed. The fire, it balances on top of the smoking wick the way a pair of feet in pink stockings balance on a rope pulled taut between two poles in the tense silence of a circus act. It’s a grey sound with an almost electric crackle to it, feels like it creeps up your spine and with a fiery hiss blackens your bones and chars your heart. It’s in the flexible sway of the wheat in the distance. It’s in the bubbling heat of the sun. It’s in the shifting of the flour-dense dust that’s powdering the hills. And it’s even closer—it’s inside the man who is walking beside him, moving with the weight and stealth of a restless desert, disturbed by winds and foreign treads, by the twinkling eye of a scorpion and by time. Is he the flame that burns? Is he the smoke that cools?

And another sound: the man’s open shirt giving weak flutters as the wind pushes it back from his broad shoulders and it gets snatched in one elbow then in the other The sound reminds Loki of his mom putting the laundry out to dry on the old clotheslines, eight stories up where the only other sound was of the doves’ wings in the early hours of the morning. And it irks him that he is remembering it now, because he likes keeping things separated: his own inner life versus the outside world. When things from the out start bleeding into the secret world of you, you lose all sense of safety. When the secret world of you starts bleeding out and coloring things from the out, you get a false sense of familiarity and thus a false sense of safety. Both are extremely dangerous.

They continue to walk in silence. Nature speaks for them.

 _–why are you here_ , the sun asks.

 _–I was curious_ , the wind replies.

And the touch: the man’s fingers on his chin earlier, lacquered gold in the candlelight, thumb and forefinger maneuvering Loki’s head as if it were a skull on a shelf you move to the side when you need more room to stack your books in. Loki hates being touched like that. His grandfather used to do it when Loki was small, to temper down rudeness and to focus attention to a specific matter of great importance to one—both a manifestation of control over another. The similarity has Loki pulling his shoulders back, walking straighter. His way of saying I’m a grown, fully formed human being, you can’t use your hands to morph me into something else—I’m in control.

The man notices this. Like a fleeting movement of light you can’t be sure if it’s real or not, his eyes move sideways to look at Loki. His direct gaze leaves Loki feeling exposed. Instead of letting the man unfurl his soul with the same ease as loosening a weak knot, Loki closes up and attacks.

“So,” he says, wearing an ironic smirk on his small mouth, “a sex cult, huh.” And without giving the man any chance to reply, he adds without wiping the grin off his lips: “is this even legal.”

And he answers his own question: “it can’t be. It’s setting people back a thousand years. Babylon galore.”

The man blinks at Loki’s mouth.

He purses his lips a little, “I like the way you say it.”

Thor’s gaze moves to the blue horizon that’s walking towards them like a flat wave on dry pebbles, watching his fields and acres.

“Babylon,” the man, Thor, says, with the articulation of an ancient storyteller and the wheat replies with a scratchy murmur.

There’s something primal about the way he says it, like a voice speaking from a different time, and it reverberates inside Loki as if his body was a silent cave.

A shadow passes before Loki’s eyes and in that fleeting absence of light, he sees figures coupling in Babylon’s ruins—coral-colored stone dust, porey cotton shifts, lips that bite and rough hands that take.

“It was brought down,” Loki says and uses the word again on purpose without really knowing why, “Babylon. By logic. And morality.”

With the whip-like sound of the candles burning in his mind, Loki quotes: “’And another angel, a second one, followed, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality.’”

Scanning the skies wistfully, Loki adds: “Revelation 14:8.”

The man squints his right eye.

“You know your Bible,” the man says, looking him over again as if seeing him now for the first time, but Loki knows it’s just looking with a new mindset: “catholic school?”

Loki stays silent this time, giving his lips a nervous lick.

“With all this religious upbringing,” Thor concludes, “how come you search for hope in all the wrong places?”

Loki gives a tight-lipped smile and directs a victorious look his way, “so you admit this place is wrong.”

The man shakes his head, “that’s your opinion.”

A bee buzzes past Loki’s right ear. Its body feels like a cotton ball. Loki swats at it lightly although it’s no longer there.

“You’re the leader of a sex cult,” Loki accuses.

The man gives another shake of his head, this time a short twitchy one, like he’s trying to loosen up a cinched muscle in his neck.

“I help people find hope. Love is a byproduct of the feeling of safety in one’s present and future life,” he says, “I’m not doing anything bad.”

Loki squints his eyes at him. Clearly, it’s a matter of opinion. Loki doesn’t know much about the Spes cult, but what he was a witness to just around a quarter of an hour ago painted quite a vivid picture of something that seemed dark and immoral, contradicting any sense of privacy, going against law and formality and common courtesy. An image of the two men coupling while the others around them watch and touch themselves amongst the flickering candle flames, flashes in his mind. Does their leader force them to do it or do they do it out of this wish to please him, to show gratitude. That remains to be seen, IF Loki would decide to even give this place a second thought, that is.

“But you have rules, right,” Loki says.

It’s warm and humid and bright yellow out there and his sweaty hair sticks to the back of his neck like spirals of sticky tape.

Thor eyes him with a thought-penetrating gaze, stubbornly silent.

With his wind tousled blonde hair and fluttering open shirt, Loki thinks that the only thing that’s missing is a blade of grass sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and bodies buried in unmarked graves under all this lush greenery and fertile earth. Looking him in the eye makes Loki feel uneasy. It’s like coming face to face with discord and chaos. It wakes you up, but it sends your confidence spiraling out of its orbit and leaves you feeling hopeless, a lost traveler.

Loki raises his brows at him as if to say not going to reply to my question, huh.

After a second more, Thor says: “just wondering if you’re asking so you can use what I say against me.” And his gaze goes in even deeper.

“Of course I’m going to use it against you,” Loki says and kicks a small piece of dirt, sending it flying through the pointy grass, “will that make you reconsider replying in earnest.”

“No,” Thor replies straight away, “the rules exist. I made the rules. I have no regrets and if you’ll choose to take a stand against me regarding them, you wouldn’t be the first.”

Loki’s sticks his chin out, “ah, the freedom to think what you want and do what you want. Do you teach this here, too.”

“No,” Thor says and his eyes are deathly serious, “too much freedom makes you prone to making mistakes. You make mistakes, you let life lead you anywhere. You go, you lose your path. You have to think what I think, do what I do, to see and understand and accept what I have to offer.”

Loki scuffs because the way the man is choosing his words sound familiar, “you’re the one who wrote that one page on your website, aren’t you. Same choice of words. Same mindset.” And he adds with a crooked smile with a joking tone, “we’ll rekindle your passions.”

The smile stays on, mouth a little open, tongue moving inside a little, while he waits for Thor to say something, defend his corny choice of words.

Thor returns a smirk of his own, a gaze directed straight at Loki’s eyes. That look is his answer, knowing and daring and experienced.

“It brought you here,” the man adds.

Loki’s about to reply when all of a sudden he just stops walking. He was aware of his legs moving the whole time, and the landscape changing around him like hand-painted holiday greeting cards, minimally. But his sense of time and place seemed to have momentarily suspended, or worse, tempered with. He thought they were a lot closer to the farmhouse than they actually were, when in actuality they left it far behind.

Loki turns and squints against the flickering sunlight. The farmhouse stands on top of the hill, like a wick sticking out of the waxy form of a candle, dark in the noon tricky shadows. Where they are now, the greenery reaches mid-calf and Loki’s car is nowhere to be seen. The realization that he walked this far without even noticing makes him feel uneasy and a little sick to his stomach. He gives a short gulp, eyes blinking around.

Loki stayed through the whole coupling thing. He wasn’t even sure how to call it. Was it an orgy? A weird sex ritual? He stayed and watched, fist pressed to his mouth, gaze fixed on the center of the room and did he even blink once, he wasn’t sure. He watched from a distance and even though his mind insisted that he turn and walk away, run down the stairs with the candle flames by the banister licking his heels, a morbid sense of curiosity kept him in place. The feelings he could clearly identify crackling inside him were agitation, discomfort, a hot thrill at being a part of something that is perceived wrong by mundane society—similar to the kind of thrill he’d get whenever he’d skip school for a day (the golden cross on his neck a constant reminder of the wrong way he’s behaving), or watch a movie his parents made it clear to him that he shouldn’t watch. Being raised in cotton wool makes every little thing that you do that you shouldn’t, feel like a rebellious act. You know you’re breaking the rules, you know it’s morally wrong, but you enjoy the feeling nonetheless. And Loki remembers thinking as he was standing there biting on his knuckles, candlelight in his eyes: what made them this way. Do they have no self respect, having sex in public like that.

And a companion thought, haughty: I’ll never become like them.

He had, what he believed was an advantage over them: he just got there, it’s not too late for him, he didn’t do anything wrong, he can just leave. He was sure they couldn’t.

When it was over, Thor asked him if he would like to come and have a chat with him in his office. For some reason, Loki agreed. They left the incense-filled room and headed down the hallway. Loki expected to be escorted into an office. He got a walk outside instead. The second they stepped into the white light, it felt like he could hear again, it felt like waking up from a deep sleep and finding your arms and legs again.

Loki looks around. The land is Thor’s office. If so, what does it make all that is beyond it. Is it Thor’s world?

“I was curious,” Loki says and when he spots a self-indulging twinkle in Thor’s eye he adds curtly, “don’t look so smug. A lot of things leave me curious. I get all Mr-wanna-know-it-all about old newspaper articles and people collecting buttons. So don’t think you and your place here are something special.”

“Besides,” Loki says, “I see I’ve made you proud of yourself, and isn’t pride a sin?”

Loki shoots the man a challenging look, eyes crinkling at the corners cause it feels like he got him, caught him doing something not by the book.

The sunlight is hanging like a spinning wheel just over their heads. The white light sucks all the blue out of the man’s eyes until all that is left of it is black. It’s like looking at an eclipse in real time and it leaves Loki staring, heart picking up its pace in a sudden sense of eeriness.

The man moves closer without breaking eye contact. Loki has to force himself not to take a step back.

The sound of the man’s shirt fluttering fills Loki’s ears. He sees the doves cooing on his windowsill back home.

The man’s pupils seem to disappear and his voice is like shifting sand dunes.

“The rules of the Bible don’t apply here,” he says and a tingle pinches its way down Loki’s spine.

“No?” Loki tilts his head back, trying to not look intimidated, “which rules do you follow.”

The man is blocking the sun and the wind. He’s a mass of shadow and warmth in Loki’s personal space and only the whites of his eyes and his shirt’s collar throw back some light.

“You want to know?”

Loki gives a little shrug, tension curling around his heart like barbed wire.

Studying Loki’s face carefully, the man reaches into his breast pocket. He takes out a small booklet and hands it to Loki.

Loki takes It from him like it’s just a flyer he got in the mail, nothing important.

The little booklet feels pleasantly warm from the man’s body heat. It has a white cover with the word Spes in bold letters on the front cover. It opens like a notepad. Inside, all the pages are black paper.

Loki’s frown keeps turning deeper as he flips through it. There’s no writing to be found in it, just blank black pages.

“Huh,” he says.

He blinks down at it then breaks out into a smile.

“Is this you trying to trick me,” Loki says, tapping the booklet against his knee, “is it you saying Spes actually has no rules and that’s what makes it so great. Like the absence of rules leads to hope and happiness and then to mind-blowing public sex?”

A stripe of sunlight falls over the man’s eyes.

“Look at the rules,” he says as he takes a step back, “see how you like them. If something clicks, then come back. If not. Pretend the whole thing didn’t happen. It’ll be easier for you.”

Thor’s face is fully illuminated now. It’s all hard lines and an unwavering gaze.

Loki gives a sideway smirk, “what, erase the GPS coordinates from my mind.” Then he adds: “what’s up with that, by the way. Just one line of text was needed there: wanna come visit us, we’re at…and then the GPS numbers. So people can get it. I almost missed them entirely cause they were just there with nothing to say what they are. Was it that hard to add a line there, or were your hands too occupied to type.”

Loki pokes his cheek with his tongue because it was innuendo and by the quick squint of the man’s eyes, he got it.

In this light, Thor’s eyes remind Loki of pebbles that sleep at the bottom of lakes and ponds. Heavy and silent. They stay hidden for decades before something makes them appear out of the water by a tree or a fallen branch.

“The numbers are there for people to find. And do what they want with,” the man says, “a little test of will. Everything is. Life is a test, too. Only those who have the will and the power, pass.”

All of a sudden, a great wave of tiredness washes over Loki. His lids feel heavy and the sunlight hurts his eyes. The booklet cover goes sleek in his sweaty hand.

They stand there, out in the open, and even though everything is quiet and nothing stirs, Loki feels the constant need to look around. Trees can grow eyes.

Loki toys with the booklet as Thor watches. It’s Loki’s way of reminding the large, unstable man, that by giving him the booklet, he’s also given him time to leaf through it in a place that’s not there. To remind him that he can’t keep him here, that he’s free to go.

But what if it’s all a trick? Meant to confuse so Loki would be vulnerable and not notice a whisper of unsuspected danger. Is Loki to be tortured, murdered, buried under this stifling heat, never to be seen again.

Loki lets out a quiet hum, replying to what the man said just a few moments ago.

“Walk me to my car?” Loki says. He hopes Thor would lead the way so he could keep an eye on him.

Thor’s gaze flutters over the booklet again before he nods and turns and starts leading them back to the farmhouse.

Loki stays two steps behind, buying time with trying to fit the booklet into the back pocket of his jeans, making a spectacle of it to make it look like him not being able to fit it in is causing him to lag behind for a while.

Loki follows the billowing shirt, the sway of the hard shoulders.

After a few minutes Loki sees his car glinting in the grass.

He palms the keys with a sense of relief.

The second he walks into the car he turns the AC on, keeping the door open for a bit as he pops open the glove compartment and puts the booklet inside it.

Clank!

Loki jumps. Turns his head.

Thor slammed some coins onto the dashboard.

“Gas money,” he says and his eyes bore into Loki’s.

Loki looks him over as he scoops the coins into his palm. Thor stands there, tan and not wearing any shoes, and behind him the wheat sways slowly from side to side.

“Thanks,” Loki mutters and the glinting coins fall into his hand, “I don’t see you as believing in material things, though.”

“I don’t,” the man replies, “but you do.”

Loki chuckles and it comes out all mean-spirited, “you’d love to see me walk all the way back into town, right. The sunlight as my gasoline, my brain enlightened.”

Loki tucks the money into his pocket, arching his hips off the seat, “well, not today. Today it’s tires and steering wheel.”

“Someday,” Thor says after a long pause and the certainty in his voice catches Loki unprepared so he answers with a cold: “maybe.” Just to annoy.

Loki drives the car onto the main road. He looks in the rearview mirror. The man keeps getting smaller and smaller as Loki drives away. At some point, Loki can’t tell him from the tall stalks of wheat that stand around him.

It’s ten minutes into the drive when Loki realizes he’s missing his sunglasses. They were on his hair and now they’re gone, and he never even took them off.


End file.
